Start out by making a timeline of video game consoles, then get specific information on each system as to their groundbreaking features and most popular games. Then compare and contrast some competing systems such as SNES and Genesis or PS2 and XBox.

I've done long papers on video game history and the effect it had on culture, and by a standard I always tended to start out with text-based computer games, then graphically I jumped into the Magnavox Odyssey then the timeline just flows from there.

Regarding the nostalgy SNES is the best out there. Chrono Trigger is my favorite.
Shinning Force on SEGA. Prince of Persia is probably the oldest game i can think of on PC.
Those console rpg's really affected my childhood...

Atari (2600, 5200) and even early Atari computers, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Macintosh, Apple series (1,2, etc) are nostalgic with the Atari 2600 being perhaps the most nostalgic system ever created.

SNES is a second generation Nintendo system using 16 bit graphics in 320x200 resolution. Not my definition of nostalgia.

NES is a first generation Nintendo system using 8 bit graphics in 320x200 resolution. It wasn't until much later in computers that any of them were ever able to do this.

My first PC had a 4.77 MHz 8088 Intel CPU which was 75% IBM 8086 compatible, no mouse, no printer, no hard drive (disk as it was called then), DOS 2.10 (2nd generation DOS - release version), 16 color EGA graphics, 4 color MCGA graphics, a 3 voice sound card (actually quite good for the time - C64 had a much better one), 2 cartridge slots, 128 KB ram (again quite good for the time), an infrared keyboard, an RGB monitor with built-in-speaker, and the oldest looking two button joystick you ever saw.

This piece o crapola was known as the IBM PCjr. Classic games were:

Jumpman
Kings Quest 1
Shamus
Flight Simulator 1.00 by Sublogic, published my Microsoft. (Don't ask me how they got 3D graphics to work with only a mere 4.77 MHz to play with). Bruce Artwick is the father of 3D if you ask me. Carmack eat your heart out.

If it wasn't for the advent of the SoundBlaster card and new video cards to push the Flight Simulator games (first video cards were introduced specifically to run Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 - an early form of Hardware Acceleration), NES and SNES wouldn't be around. NES and SNES developed solely out of modern PC technology (or modern at the time).

Atari 2600 and IBM PCjr were released at nearly the same time with the Atari being somewhat earlier. The first IBM released I believe was the IBM AT followed by the IBM XT. Both of these systems used the principles learned on the IBM 4044 chip. The 4044 is probably one of the earliest chips from the IBM/Intel relationship era.

There are also more nostalgic computers like the Altair which are a far cry from what we know today as the PC.

Computers, not consoles, pushed the envelope.....and they always will.